NSUI seeks President’s intervention in JNU admission issue

New Delhi, Feb 24 (IANS) The National Students Union of India (NSUI) on Friday urged President Pranab Mukherjee to intervene on the issue of the JNU Vice-Chancellor’s “arbitrary” move to slash admission seats.

“The Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) Vice Chancellor (VC) is shockingly announcing arbitrary decisions and fundamental changes in JNU’s admission policy and research programmes through press conferences refusing either to discuss these in JNU’s decision-making bodies like Academic Council and Executive Council, or meet students’ and teachers’ representatives,” NSUI, the students wing of Congress party, said in a statement.

The complaint was against the adoption of a UGC notification by the university which imposed a cap on the intake of candidates in M.Phil. and Ph.D. The university has justified the move saying they have to abide by the funding agency, that is UGC, and that the given student-teacher ratio is a universal norm for universities.

However, the delegation led by senior Congress leaders, reasoned with Mukherjee that the move of capping the intake of students was against the egalitarian history of the JNU and the JNU Act which provisioned a fixed 54 per cent intake for OBC students in these course.

“The present number of seats in JNU has been fixed as part of the implementation of OBC reservation and the concomitant expansion of seats, infrastructure and faculty (during 2008-10), mandated by the 93rd amendment of the Constitution,” the student body said.

It also alleged that the VC “bulldozed” the notification in the Academic Council without any discussion and demanded the the 142nd meet where it was passed be declared “annulled” and reconvened again.

The JNU Students Union has been protesting against the notification ever since it was passed on December 26 last year. It has also rendered the administrative block of the varsity under a forced lock-down demanding its revocation.